This text is from a interview feature I wrote about the development of the game.

STAR TREK INVASION (from a feature in Star Trek: The Magazine)

Activision are once more breaking the Star Trek video games mold with their release of the first ever Star Trek title for the popular Sony PlayStation console; Star Trek Invasion (formerly known as Star Trek: Red Squad) plays to the strengths of this dynamic games system with a high-speed, challenging action- adventure set in the aftermath of Star Trek : Deep Space Nine's Dominion War. Invasion casts the player in the role of Ensign Ryan Cooper, a newly-graduated Starfleet officer and member of the notorious Red Squad, assigned to the command of Lieutenant Commander Worf on a mission to protect the Federation from a potential Borg invasion - but as the game unfolds, Ensign Cooper soon discovers that another threat is lurking in deep space, an ancient enemy reawakened and searching for vengeance; a deadly race of ravagers known as the Kam'Jahtae.

Star Trek Invasion is the culmination of months of intensive work by the staffers at the Warthog design studio in Manchester, England. With a crew whose pedigrees include PlayStation arcade action hits like Colony Wars, Colony Wars: Vengeance and PC titles like Lander and F-16 Aggressor, the Warthog team are well qualified to introduce the energetic thrills of space combat to the Star Trek games universe. Lead designer Haydn Dalton describes the genesis of Star Trek Invasion; "There was an empty niche in the PlayStation market because there wasn't a Star Trek game out there." he notes. "Many of the team here had worked on Colony Wars, so we took that concept and added it to the Star Trek franchise, to do something a little bit different but also build on what we knew." Dalton feels that the Warthog team's experience enabled them to avoid pitfalls and problems in developing Invasion. "We've taken this game in a lot of new directions as well. Our biggest challenge has been to integrate the game into the Star Trek universe - we've pushed a few things but at the same time we've used a lot of elements that are typical of the series, like popular races and characters such as the Klingons and the Borg." He adds that the game features all the starships that "we thought were cool!" such as the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E, the Klingon Bird of Prey, Borg Cube and Romulan Warbird.

Star Trek Invasion began production at the beginning of 1999, with the first development of the game's key concepts and the initial test designs of the game engine. "There was a lot of to-and-froing on the story at the outset, because we knew that the plot would be a very important feature in the game." From the early prototype versions of the ships and the basic story outline, Invasion grew into a fully-fledged game with an action-packed narrative. "I think visually this is the best space combat game available for the PlayStation," says Haydn, "it's also technically very tight, with a lot of polygons being pushed around the screen at a steady thirty frames-per-second and lots of lighting effects." He adds that the game has been designed to be intuitive and easy to pick up and play; "The controls are very natural to use, and there's different levels to them that each produce different effects. There's also a broad variety of missions, with single-player and dual-player options, training missions and holodeck 'deathmatch' games."

Chris Graham, who works with Dalton on the design of Invasion, is responsible for creating many of the missions that face the players in the game. Chris admits that he's not a Star Trek fan, but feels that his objectivity allows him to figure out new takes on the series' universe; "We're not taking the same path (as other games)." In fact, the hardest part about working on the game has been trying not to pack too much in - "I have to reign myself in!" Graham smiles "We only have a limited amount of memory!" Chris enjoys programming the 'director-cam' sequences in the game, the brief cinematic scenes that set up events in the game plotline. "It takes you away from the action but you're seeing views of starships and space - I love doing those! I had to stop myself from stretching them into minutes-long scenes!" He continues. "We have a very versatile editor program and we can program different artificial intelligence and attack patterns to as many enemy ships as we want to. Instead of just 'ship A attack ship B', we can say 'ship A attack ship B, but if ship B attacks ship C, drop some mines and do an evasive maneuver, warp out and return with reinforcements'...the scope is endless."

Andrew Santos, another member of the mission-creation team, notes that his experience on Colony Wars: Vengeance stood him in good stead to develop Invasion. "Being involved in a space game before helped, giving me an idea of what a potential player would want to do." Andy was already familiar with the Star Trek mythos from watching the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation; "Most of the ideas for missions came from the aliens and races from the series - for example, the Borg missions follow the Borg's attitude. Whereas on some games you could have a battle where you can beat the enemy into retreat, you know that the Borg are definitely not going to do that." He also mentions one of the two-player missions, which allows players to fly head-to- head piloting Klingon and Romulan fightercraft - "We have two battle-hardened squadrons coming together, with a Klingon Bird of Prey and a Romulan Warbird backing them up" - and promises a hard-fought skirmish for any contenders.

In order to attract both serious Star Trek fans and the hard core of PlayStation gamers, Star Trek Invasion had to include elements that made it part of the Star Trek universe as well as intense gameplay - the task of creating the look and feel of 'Invasion' fell to art director Tarlochan Randhawa. Han, as he's known, has always loved the design of Star Trek, and quickly came up with his own unique takes on Starfleet, Romulan, Klingon and other alien hardware. "I gathered as much information as I could on Star Trek ships to understand the detailing and structure of each 'style'." The key vessels in Star Trek Invasion are the Valkyrie fighters piloted by the player and the U.S.S. Typhon, a prototype starship which functions like a modern-day aircraft carrier. "The first thing we came up with was the one-man fighter, but the only small Federation ships are the shuttles and workbees," Han notes, "then we started to use scaled-down versions of recognizable starships in our designs." Eventually, the Valkyries adopted elements of the scoutship, shuttlecraft and captain's yacht from Star Trek Insurrection and grew into its' sleek finished form. "We didn't want to make it look aggressive, like a conventional jet fighter - Starfleet is a peace-keeper, so the design reflects that." Conversely, the Typhon was designed to be a contemporary of the U.S.S. Defiant, with a similar solid, tough shape. "We needed a mobile base for the player to work from, a ship that could go into combat itself and even enter a 'fortress mode' for battle."

New ships for the Klingons, Romulans and the Borg were created in a similar way, basing their designs on established construction styles - for example, the Romulan fighters share similarities to the larger Warbird while the Borg attack ships follow simple geometric shapes. But for the vicious Kam'Jahte, Han had to design them from the ground up. "We had to think of how they would operate - the Kam'Jahte are insect-like, so they live in hives and they move in groups, swarming over their targets. They're ferocious and they attack without retreat, fighting to the death." To come up with the designs for both the alien race and their vessels, Han studied beetles and army ants. "They have hard, organic shells that look as if they might have been grown rather than built; perhaps the Kam'Jahte pilots have a symbiotic relationship with their vessels and their bio-energy power sources..." He adds that his key task was to maintain the look and feel of a Star Trek adventure. "All Star Trek designs have a certain signature, and we have to keep to that, as well as making sure that the ships translate well to the game engine."

Senior artist Marcus Tanner has the task of constructing the digital versions of Han's designs for the game, and one of his main contributions to Star Trek Invasion are the levels that take the player deep inside the core of Borg Cube. "I build three-dimensional shapes and texture the surfaces." he explains. "The Borg core has been a long job, because the game engine was developed for outer space, not interiors. It has been hard for the programmers to implement it because it's really a separate game on its' own." In the Borg mission, the player has to pilot their Valkyrie fighter into the center of the Borg Cube to capture a transwarp coil, and escape alive. "I'm quite interested in designing shapes that are different" says Tanner, "so I've created two space parasite creatures based on images from an electron microscope." In the game, Marcus's bug-like creatures attack a crippled shuttle that the player must rescue intact, and in a later mission they return as living weapons of the Kam'Jahtae.

Working with Marcus is Nathan Roberts, who is responsible for bringing the warships of the Kam'Jahtae to life. "They're organic rather than mechanical, and that's a real nightmare to program! Han's designs have a lot of inter-connected and overlapping components which are difficult to construct." But Nathan's hard work has paid off, with the lethal alien craft fully translated into the gameworld, including the colossal mile-long Vanguard Ship or 'spine vessel'.

At the core of the game is the software engine, and in the final stages of production it is lead programmer Mike Anthony and testers like Jon Spencer who must comb the code for bugs and last-minute fixes. "It's my job to make sure the game is complete when it's released." says Mike. Jon and his fellow testers play the missions over and over in search of glitches, but his enthusiasm for the game isn't dampened. "You can really lose yourself in it - it's like being in an episode." As big Star Trek fans, both Mike and Jon are happy to be working on Invasion. "It's great, especially when you realize that you're working with actors like Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn!" says Mike. "It also helps to be a fan because you know what is Star Trek and what's not, and that's good for the game." "You can't ask for a better job!" adds Jon, "Especially when you're working on something that you're really into, like Star Trek!"

With Invasion complete Hadyn Dalton and the Warthog staff are already considering their next project; with the launch of the new next-generation PlayStation 2 console, the possibility of a follow-up to Invasion is already being discussed. "I'd be surprised if there isn't a sequel." he says. "Perhaps we might do something more ground-based for the follow-up - we already have a guy tinkering around with the PS2 technology, with over sixty-four ships on screen at once and no slow-down in the gameplay..."

(Written by J.Swallow, originally published in Star Trek: The Magazine, 2000)

All images © their original copyright holders.

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